Huntsville gazette., 1887-10-29
PAPER PRODUCTION.
Methods by Which the Best and Most Dur
able Quality Is Made.

N0thOdS by Which the Best and MOSe Dur
able Quality Is Made.
To properly mix fbres we must
know the way they combine to pro-
duce paper, and the qualities which
they should possess to that end 1t
was a generally accepted idea until
very lately that the fibers of the paper
sheet close or lock together in the
same way as animal hair in felt. At
the beginning of this work even, paper
Is described as felted sheet. DR..
Wurster sent us at the beginning Of
the present year the following COM
munication. from which it would APP
pear that paper is not felt, in the
hitherto acceptation of the word, but
simply "a confused mass of fiber"
Here is what Dr. Wuster says:
However great progress may have
been made in telling what paper is.
we have yet no correct explanation Of
the origin and nature of the paper
sheet. 1t has become a matter
of course to consider paper as felt
of fibers, although at the beginning of
the century the discoverer of the ma
ture of the felting of animal fbers
objected most decidedly to calling
paper felt. The peculiar clinging
together, occasioned by the animal
scales in the wood or hair felt, and the
INTERVIEWING the hair more together
by pressure and motion, making the
felt thicker and smaller in its dimen-
sions, are lacking in paper fibers.
Merely placing dry paper fibers on
one another will not make sheet Of
paper. rs can be easily seen by using
dry rag fiber or lint. Neither will
shortcut wool or silk filaments make
sheet of any strength. The capacity
for producing consistent sheet of
paper belongs solely to those fibers
which lose their elasticity in water rs
they become softer, but recover that
quality again in drying In the moist
ened state the ductile fibers, aided
by the shaking, settle down in all di-
rections and form confused fiber
mixture. In drying, every fiber grad
ually RECEIVERS its original form and
elasticity, and the individual fbers
exert certain pressure on each other.
The longer the fibers and the more
intricate the mixture of the fibers
when wet, the stronger will be the
sheet of paper when dry. When wet,
or when its fbers have lost their
elasticity by heat, paper can not be
drawn in every way like felt in which
each hair is, so to say, anchored to an
other by its scales. A sheet of paper
must no longer, therefore, be desig-
mated as a felt, but as a confused
mixture of such fbers as are
soft and pliable when moist,
but hard and elastic when dry.
The greater the shaking together
of the wet fibers in both directions OF
the wire the firmer and stronger will
DO the sheet. The shorter the fibers
the less pliable will they become with
water, as in the case of ground wood,
and the less will be the pressure which
individual fibers exert on each other,
and the more brittle will the paper
sheet turn out.
Every strange material mixed with
the fibers, and then placed between
them In the formation of the sheet,
prevents them from lying close togeth-
er, thus lessening the solidity of the
paper. We shall speak of the results
of experiments in this line with sizing,
mineral loading and ground wood in
future issues. s.-Prabtisches Rd7adbuch.